Jalen is a rhythm player. It's hard for him to get a rhythm if he's standing around a 3rd of the game. And to me, that's what he's doing. Just jacking up 3s is not maximizing his talents. If he miss three or four in a row, I think more times than not, it messes with his psychy. Players want to see the ball go into the basket. You have to have the ball in your hands and get an easy layup here and there. That's why players say, KEEP SHOOTING! But to him, I think it will get him involved quicker if the ball was in his hands. To us, it's about efficiency but to them, it's about seeing the ball go into the basket, be it 1-8, 2-12, etc.
My answer is yes, it matters a lot. However, I do like to strongly push back on the conventional wisdom that faster is always better. It bothers me when sports pundits refer to it as "better pace" when they mean faster. I strongly disagree with faster being objectively better. Every year we see lots of teams play fast and have very bad offenses. We also see lots of teams play very slow and have very good offenses. So basically what I'm saying is it's complicated and it's based on your team, your coach, your system, and your personnel. The best offenses in the league often play slower. There is not a strong correlation between higher pace and better offense. Having said that, I haven't seen any evidence that playing fast benefits the rockets. You can go back and look at the rockets schedule, they are not more likely to win games they play fast. Their offense is not better in games they play fast, either. They have a lot of really good offensive performances in some of their slowest paced games, and they have some really bad ones in their highest pace games. So I'm willing to hear the argument, which is why I asked the question. I am not saying it isn't true, and I am able to be persuaded if someone can make a convincing case. But I'm not currently convinced that it's beneficial for this team to play fast(er).
Run the Rudy T 99 plays. Jalen iso, 4 guys in a corner and have jock fly in for an alley oop like Cato.
I didn't know there's an idea faster is always better. I don't think it's particularly unique to our team this question. It's really about skill vs athleticism. That's generally how pace is used as a war tactic, you're changing the terrain under the battle in order to favor you a bit. If your key players are highly skilled, smart and strong, slow is for you. You're talking about a James Harden or CP3 or an aged Anthony Davis here. Can play fast too if they have the IQ. However these "slow" players will make all your weaknesses show and beat you up while they score/pass. They have killer handles. They know all the tricks for baiting fouls. These are your true half court guys. Older guys are better at this in general. If your key players are not strong, especially skilled or high in bball IQ then fast is for you. You want to generate as many instances where athleticism outweighs skill. You want transition. You want players on their toes. You want to make them guard you with your speed rather than without. You want to get more alley oops and cuts. You want to unpack the paint and not have your less skilled and less strong players have to navigate and bump shoulders too much with defenders. We have 7 elite prospects of which 4 are elite athletes and are just faster than their peers. The reason Udoka is begging for more and more pace is because transition points are easy and it's criminal of us not to be leading the league in this department. Playing slow only seems to suit FVV, Brooks and maybe Whitmore. It's weird to cater to that even if the difference in results is negligible. You want to build based on the specific pieces you have. As long as we have Sheppard, Green, Amen, Whitmore and Tari this team should run a lot. I get it, it can look messy at first but it has to start that way. More importantly for the future, we have to decide who we are and start extinguishing the players that can't adapt to that. Right now we're neither slow nor fast, kind of bipolar. Last seasons slow offense was objectively one of the worst in the NBA. The staff has been pretty clear they want to play faster and with more pace so I'm thinking they know where we're headed.
You would also need great handles to play transition most of the times. They have average to above average handles at best other than FVV.
Jalen is not a system. HARDEN IS VERY RARE. His passes are godly and he has a extremely high BBALL iq. Jalen is not either of those things.
If Harden is a system, that means Westbrook, Ja Morant, Jamal Murray are systems too, correct? I think you and others are missing my point. Take for instance last nights game, FVV took the majority of the shots in the first two Qtrs. However, good, bad or indifferent he is going to take the majority of the shots, because the ball is in his hands. And with those shots, he's going to pass the ball to Alpi 85% - 90% of the time in the halfcourt sets. Thus Alpi and FVV are touching the ball the most. Getting into a rhythm. If you go back and look, Jalen had maybe 3 or 4 attempts the entire first half. And the touches came at different areas; layup, 3ptr, and mid - range. Nothing where he can get a rhythm. He mainly stood at the 3pt line the majority of the time. And maybe that's by design at the beginning of the games. I just think it'll be better if he can get into a rhythm earlier. So rather than him scoring 21, as he did last night, maybe he's at 30 and shooting a better percentage.
There is a general idea that faster is better but it depends on the types of shots you take. As you mentioned - if you have an opportunity to get transition scoring, those are obviously the best shots to take - relatively high percentage shots at the rim with less defenders around. That's definitely why you would want to play faster with this roster - solid call out. The other reason came out of the Morey school of number crunching - if you take more 3s than the other team then you will score more than the other team over time and the more possessions you have, the easier it is to regress to the mean to prove that out since 3pt shooting is volatile in lower numbers. It's all about beating the percentage variance with volume....but obviously, this is not OUR team - we are bad 3pt shooters. I think there are two others reasons you would want to play fast with this specific team and that is that we don't necessarily have the types of players who can easily create in a half court set so you want as much time on the clock to get into your actions and work for good half court shots if you can't score in transition.The other reason I think is that we have such a deep bench we should be running teams out of the gym every game. You saw it a bit in that NY game where the Knicks players looked gassed towards the end because Houston could sub guys in and keep the same intensity and quality and the Knicks had no such counter. It only works though if we are relentlessly pushing the pace every play, playing physical, and making teams work for every bucket to exhaust them. We have the bodies to throw at teams for that - we just need to commit to it game after game. Last point - we can play faster by playing Fred less minutes. Honestly, he doesn't need to be playing 40+minutes a game anymore. He's a big reason why our pace stagnates.
Unfortunately the way Fred has started off the past two games scoring like prime Steve Nash, Ime is going to rely on him more. Ime has a Fred addiction. Too reliant on him. The moment he sees a turnover committed by the team when Fred is on the bench resting he reflexively brings Fred in thinking the team is on the verge of falling apart. He doesn't let the young guys play through mistakes enough and therefore this leads to Fred coming into game situations just because of a single turnover. I think Ime's fear of turnovers is limiting the pace of this offense. It seems like guys are too afraid to take risks. I mean it's sounds good when opposing team commentators praise how the Rockets lead the league in limiting turnovers since Ime and Fred got here but it also is a double edged sword that seems to limit pace also.
saying faster is better is similar to saying you should just shoot 3s because they are more efficient. There is a window where you can find efficient shots at the beginning of the shot clock. Faster is better to use that window. But it requires decision making to take good shots and to revert to half court offense if you can’t find a good shot. So if you just take early shots to push the pace it won’t end well. Ideally you should bring the ball fast for an early opportunity as much as possible and take a good shot when you have it and have a half court offense if you don’t have a good shot. In that sense more pace is better. Teams not taking advantage of early attack will be worse imo.
Obviously there is no point to pace of it's stupid pace. But I think this team has a severe issue with how long it takes for a offensive set to develop for this team in half court sets.
Very good points. I have been saying much of the same things. FVV has picked it up the past 3 games but that's not the point. It's the fact that he does not push pace, he isn't making everybody around him better and because of his height he gets picked on defensively and he does not get rebounds. I don't know if anyone paid attention to Jalen's passing and playmaking last night but I thought it was special. He made some nice passes to Sengun, Jabari and FVV. And to me, that is whats needed from a lead ballhandler. Also, it will keep him involved, rather than waiting for the ball to come his way. Was he perfect, by no means but neither was Harden in the assist to turnover ratios. If Cam Whitmore can regain his confidence, I would love to see a backcourt of Cam and Jalen.
